Effects of Domestic on Children

Effects of Domestic Violence on Children

Introduction

Domestic violence has become a common phenomenon in a number of societies, an increase in family violence, in American society, has been observed during the few decades. As a general survey, every one of the ten women is living in an abusive relationship, the factor that affects lives of their children. Children exposed to marital violence are highly sensitive and are unable to build harmonious relationship with their society and surrounding. Child abuse is often neglected in family and social disputes; it is considered as a regular and common thing in some cultural and familial contexts, which has further increased the threat. Children introduced to abusive domestic environment experience long-term effects in its childhood and adulthood and are often failures in family life.

Discussion

Children are exposed to both active and passive familial violation; the active violation includes their beating and abusing while in passive violation the child witnesses aggression between adults of its household, specifically parents. Children exposed to victimization have more extreme characteristics than the ones who just witness it. The individuals facing physical abuse and brutality show more severe and aggressive behavior than the children facing verbal abuse only (Fantuzzo, DePaolo, Lambert, Martino, Anderson and Sutton, 1991). No matter whether the contravention is active or passive, both scenarios have the same affect on children; they are disturbed and dejected and feel disappointment, and in some case, even hatred towards their parents. Children of family abuse are open to abuses in adult life also. It has also been observed that children witnessing violence and the ones that are abused, face identical adjustment problems in their psychological and social context.

The very first and noticeable dilemma in children of abusive household is the mental unbalance they come across; these children are often depressed and under extreme psychological distress. Such children show less interest in educational activities as their cognitive ability is preoccupied with the destructive affects of its house. They employ their learning, cognitive, skills into understanding their domestic circumstances, routine fighting between parents leads the child into thinking that it is guilty of it. Boys and girls react differently to the prevalent domestic violence; boys turn to external means of expressing their fear, anger and anxiety while girls incline to imply internal modes of expressing the same emotions. Aggressive and violent behavior are seen among boys; both boys and girls are less expressive and feel insecure in their house (Salligram, 2007).

Salligram (2007) in her study 'Effects of Domestic Violence on Children' has examined the mental condition of the children as per the mental theoretical framework. The researcher has examined the psychological theories that affect the social and familial structure; the theories have observed the communal and psychosomatic influence of violence on children in a long run. The Social Learning Theory is concerned with the role of surrounding and the other family members or specifically parents on the character building of a child. It is studied that the child is likely to imitate the ...